A Little More
by Kiria Ithica
Summary: Amu and Nagihiko get lost on a hike, and then secrets start coming out of the woodwork.


**A Little More**

**by Kiria Ithica**

**.**

**summary: Amu and Nagihiko get lost on a hiking trip, and then secrets start coming out of the woodwork.**

**.**

It was one of those days where nothing was going right. To start with, Amu Hinamori was not a girl renowned for her sense of balance.

Well. Actually, she _was_, thanks to her overblown reputation, but not exactly rightfully so, and the uneven ground of the hiking trail was little too much for her feeble vestibular system to handle. This was proven(for the fifth time that day) when her sneaker caught on an unfortunately placed branch and sent her toppling to the ground with a shriek, arms wind-milling unhelpfully the whole way down.

"_Oh god_ _oh god oh god oh_- oh. Thanks, Nagihiko."

"No problem."

Nagihiko Fujisaki, being a dancer and a rather proficient one at that, _did_ in fact have a fairly decent sense of balance, to say the least. And very fast reflexes.

Amu grinned ruefully. "Nice catch."

Nagihiko carefully pulled her into a standing position before letting go of her arm. "Um," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Lots of practice?"

Well, that was true enough, considering that he'd been the one who'd caught her the last four times she'd tripped. Amu snickered. "Yeah. No kidding."

Nagihiko raised an eyebrow, his lips curving into a smile. It was Saturday and the sky was clear above their heads, which was probably the reason why Yaya had decided to assemble everyone for an impromptu hiking trip. The trees rustled in the faint breeze. It was a nice day for hiking, if you were the sort that enjoyed that kind of thing. If you weren't (and Amu certainly was not) then it was never a nice day for hiking. "This makes five?" he said.

It did make five. "Yep," she said. "This makes five."

And then they turned around and realized that they were alone.

"Well," said Nagihiko. "I think we've been abandoned."

"That's not a problem," said Amu. "The trail is a straight… line…" Her voice trailed off. Teenagers are not the most observant of people at the best of times, and struggling desperately to stay on your feet (or alternatively, struggling desperately to help keep your friend on her feet) is not the most condusive environment for observing things. They were standing at a fork in the road.

"Do you have your mobile phone with you?" Nagihiko asked, ever practical. He patted down his pockets, screwing up his face in frustration. "I think I left mine at home."

Amu's eyes lit up. "For once, I actually _did _bring mine!" she said, and rummaged around in her bag for a few seconds before pulling it out. She flipped it open and then hesitated.

"Amu?" said Nagihiko.

She looked up at him and her eyes are wide and embarrassed. "Ah, um, there's no… no signal. Want to just pick a road each and see who finds the others first? Wait, bad idea. It's not safe to go wandering around on hiking trails alone."

"Right," said Nagihiko. "Don't want to get attacked by a rapist or anything."

"I was actually thinking more along the lines of wild animals," Amu said with a shudder. "But that works too."

"I don't think there are any wild animals big enough to eat us in this part of Japan," said Nagihiko thoughtfully. "But I'm pretty sure there are poisonous snakes. It probably is better to stick together."

"We're not just picking a road and hoping it's the right one," said Amu firmly. "They've probably realized we're missing. Let's just stay put. Maybe they'll come back and get us?"

"Probably…" echoed Nagihiko, a little more doubtful. "Yeah. Probably."

"And we might as well sit down."

"Yeah- hey, wait! Amu, your dress is white!"

Too late: she'd already thrown herself down into the dirt. The _brown_ dirt. Amu grinned. She'd never really been all that bothered by dirt and all that (but her mother was probably going to have a fit when she saw the state of Amu's dress). "Well, it's better than standing up for however long it takes for them to show up again."

Nagihiko grimaced, torn. "Your poor dress," he said.

"Oh, come on. It'll come out in the wash, okay?" Amu laughs. "For a guy, you're pretty concerned about the state of my clothes. It's nice, though! I bet Kukai would have shoved me into a puddle of mud and then suggested that I roll around on the ground to dry off, and then my mom'd _really _be furious."

"Well, it's a nice dress!" Nagihiko protests. "The material's really good quality, and you'll probably have to dry clean it to get it out. I would know, I have to spend tons on dry-cleaning every time I get stuff on my-" _dresses. _He flushed bright red, unsure of how to get himself out of the hole he'd dug for himself.

Amu blinked at him, and oh Jesus Christ she was going to figure it out, wasn't she? He was in so much hot water. They'd had slumber parties, for god's sake. Slumber parties, complete with pillow talk and snuggling. She'd kill him.

"On your Nadeshiko's dresses?" Amu said sympathetically. "And Nadeshiko made you pay up for the dry-cleaning bill?"

Thank _God_. The heavens must have been smiling down upon him. He nodded frantically. "Yes! Every single time!"

Amu laughed. "I can totally see that. Nadeshiko's pretty scary sometimes, right? Oh, but she's so great! I used to have the best slumber parties with her. Although to be honest, being alone in your house is kind of terrifying. There was this one time that I woke up and Nadeshiko wasn't there, so I went to find her, and… well."

Nagihiko remembered _that _incident. "Sorry," he said ruefully. "I didn't think you'd-" _wake up_, he starts to say, and then wishes he could hit himself, because damn it, he'd just miraculously been saved from doom, and there he was, digging himself right back into his own grave.

He pictured Amu and Rima (because of course Rima would join in, Rima _loved _causing him pain) beating him slowly to death with textbooks and screaming curses at him in righteous feminine fury.

"Nagihiko?" said Amu. "You kind of zoned out there."

He blinked, and shook himself out of his impending-doom-induced misery. "Oh, sorry. I was just… contemplating something."

"What were you contemplating?"

"Something dark and terrifying."

"Oh," said Amu, and her eyes were bright with mischief. "Don't tell me…"

Oh god she's figured it out she's going to kill me she's figured it out-

"The fact that Rima's going to murder you slowly and painfully the second she finds us?"

Wait what-

Oh. The sad thing was that that was actually very likely. So regardless of whether Amu found out or not, Rima was going to hunt him down and murder him anyway. What a pleasant thought.

It was a good cover, though, and so he clung to it like a drowning sailor clutching at straws. "Um, yeah. Exactly. She's going to kill me. Slowly and painfully."

Maybe they'd beat him to death, hire a necromancer to resurrect him, and then beat him to death again. Now there was a dark and terrifying thought.

And of course Yaya would join in too, because she'd never been one to miss out on something that seemed like fun-

"I wonder how much of her killing intent is actual killing intent and how much of it is, you know, just affection. She probably harbors some kind of deep, secret love for you."

Nagihiko promptly choked on his own saliva. "Um. I don't think so. What about- what's his name? That guy. The one who gave her a love letter. Um…"

"Kirishima, I think," supplemented Amu helpfully. " Kirishima... I don't really remember his first name. Fumito? Futoshi? Fuyuki? I'm pretty sure it's Fuyuki, actually."

"Yeah, him," said Nagihiko. "Kirishima."

Amu nodded thoughtfully. "Hm, yeah. You might have some competition for Rima's love, then. But fight hard, Nagihiko! I'm sure it will be worth it in the end."

Nagihiko spluttered and wished he could tell Amu that it wasn't Rima whose love Nagihiko was interested in competing for, but, of course, that was totally not appropriate right now, when they were lost and confused and a little scared. Besides, given the situation he couldn't really run for the hills if things went south, considering that it wouldn't be very responsible to leave Amu all alone like that.

"I'm really not interested in Rima, Amu!" he said.

Amu giggled and shrugged, but obligingly changed the subject anyway. "Did you do the literature homework?"

Oh, good. A nice, safe topic. Nagihiko sighed. "Yes. I don't really like the Man'yoshu, to be honest. Ancient tanka is so hard to understand.

"I know!" said Amu, closing her eyes and rubbing at her forehead. "But at least ancient tanka is better than ancient choka. What kind of poem is your favorite?"

Nagihiko liked tanka, but only the modern forms, and said as much.

"Wow, Nadeshiko said the same thing. You and your sister are really similar sometimes. Must be a twin thing."

Oops. Another mistake within, what, fifteen minutes. Nagihiko gave a strained smile and hoped to high heaven that Amu didn't decide to pursue the matter.

"You know," she said. "Hanging out with you makes me really miss Nadeshiko."

"Does it?" Nagihiko gulped.

"I don't mean I'd want to replace you with her or something, though!" Amu smiled, and it was oddly gentle. She got up and brushed the dirt off the back of her dress. It didn't really work, but she didn't seem to mind. "I like the both of you equally. You're my best friend, Nagihiko. Whether you're a girl or a boy doesn't matter to me, you know."

Wait, what? Nagihiko blinked. And then his brain made the connection and his heart suddenly felt like it was going to give out at any second. It was a good thing that Nagihiko wasn't holding anything, because if he had been he definitely would have dropped it.

Amu laughed, a little sheepishly. "Sorry. I was kind of messing with you. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to tell you or not. But I miss us being honest with each other, you know? Completely honest, I mean. When we got lost I kind of… thought it'd be a good opportunity for us to, you know, talk properly." She pulled her phone out of her bag again and showed it to him. The top of the screen shows three bars. "Sorry. I lied earlier. You're not mad, right?"

"Mad?" he repeated. "Mad? Me? Aren't _you _the one who's supposed to be mad?"

"Ah," she said. "Well, don't get me wrong, I'm a little hurt that you didn't trust me enough to tell me yourself, but Rima told me that you didn't want to freak me out or anything, so I guess it's okay. But I just wanted to tell you that I like you the way you are, okay? And, um." Amu blushed bright red. "It's not a _bad _thing you're a boy, alright?"

And if that meant what Nagihiko thought it meant, well. He was suddenly very, very okay with being a boy after all, even if it did mean that he technically wasn't supposed to do the pretty traditional dances that 'Nadeshiko' favored so much.

"I-" he started, and then he was blushing too, and not sure what he wanted to say. "Thanks, Amu," he says eventually. "That means a lot. Especially coming from you. For the record, I. Um. I'm glad I'm a boy too."

She pulled him into a hug, and then he didn't even know how to _begin_ describing how he was feeling. "We can be best friends properly from now on, right?" Amu said anxiously. "Best friends tell each other everything! You got that?"

"Right," he managed, with a helpless smile so wide he was almost surprised his face didn't split apart. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry or perform some sort of victory dance, but he was definitely leaning towards that last one. "Best friends. Properly this time."

And if he was hoping for maybe a little bit more, well. There'd be plenty of time for that later.


End file.
